Ryan: ‘Let’s Get This Done’

The House Budget Committee chairman depended on his strengths as a number-cruncher to lay out a down-to-earth case for why Americans should lean on the Romney-Ryan ticket to pull the country out of an economic crisis.

“Here we were, faced with a massive job crisis – so deep that if everyone out of work stood in single file, that unemployment line would stretch the length of the entire American continent. You would think that any president, whatever his party, would make job creation, and nothing else, his first order of economic business,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told the Republican National Convention tonight.

“But this president didn’t do that. Instead, we got a long, divisive, all-or-nothing attempt to put the federal government in charge of health care.”

Ryan accepted the party’s nomination for vice president “to help lead our nation out of a jobs crisis and back to prosperity – and I know we can do this.”

“I’m the newcomer to the campaign, so let me share a first impression. I have never seen opponents so silent about their record, and so desperate to keep their power,” he said. “They’ve run out of ideas. Their moment came and went. Fear and division are all they’ve got left.”

“With all their attack ads, the president is just throwing away money – and he’s pretty experienced at that.”

Ryan introduced his family to the crowd — and to the national audience — and called his late father “a gentle presence” in his life growing up in Janesville, Wis.

“President Barack Obama came to office during an economic crisis, as he has reminded us a time or two. Those were very tough days, and any fair measure of his record has to take that into account,” he said. “My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.”

Though Obama promised on the campaign trail that the GM plant would be open for “another hundred years” with government support, the congressman said, the plant shut down within the year (during whose term was an online debate after Ryan’s speech) and is locked up to this day.

“Right now, 23 million men and women are struggling to find work. Twenty-three million people, unemployed or underemployed. Nearly one in six Americans is living in poverty,” he said. “…So here’s the question: Without a change in leadership, why would the next four years be any different from the last four years?”

Ryan stressed that Medicare “is a promise, and we will honor it.” On the debt crisis, the focus of his “Path to Prosperity” budget plan, he said, “I’m going to level with you: We don’t have that much time. But if we are serious, and smart, and we lead, we can do this.”

“College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life,” he said. “Everyone who feels stuck in the Obama economy is right to focus on the here and now. And I hope you understand this too, if you’re feeling left out or passed by: You have not failed, your leaders have failed you.”

The chairman said when he was growing up washing dishes or waiting tables, “I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life. … That’s freedom, and I’ll take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners.”

Ryan quipped that, a generation apart, Mitt Romney’s iPod is stocked with songs heard “on many hotel elevators” while his “playlist starts with AC/DC, and ends with Zeppelin.”

“Mitt and I also go to different churches. But in any church, the best kind of preaching is done by example. And I’ve been watching that example. The man who will accept your nomination tomorrow is prayerful and faithful and honorable,” the Catholic congressman said. “Not only a defender of marriage, he offers an example of marriage at its best. Not only a fine businessman, he’s a fine man, worthy of leading this optimistic and good-hearted country.”

Ryan vowed that in the White House, “we will not duck the tough issues, we will lead; we will not spend four years blaming others, we will take responsibility; we will not try to replace our founding principles, we will reapply our founding principles.”

“When Governor Romney asked me to join the ticket, I said, ‘Let’s get this done’ – and that is exactly what we’re going to do,” he said.

Update: Video of Ryan speech follows on next page:

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Bridget Johnson is a veteran journalist whose news articles and opinion columns have run in dozens of news outlets across the globe. Bridget first came to Washington to be online editor at The Hill, where she wrote The World from The Hill column on foreign policy. Previously she was an opinion writer and editorial board member at the Rocky Mountain News and nation/world news columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News.
She is an NPR contributor and has contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, Politico and more, and has myriad television and radio credits as a commentator. Bridget is Washington Editor for PJ Media.

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1.
Mike Woodill

Masterful speech. One of the best pieces of the last and this century. Amazing feat to make the references about Obama almost elegiac and without bitterness and invective. And, then subtly reach across the partisan divide(s)to ask everyone for help.

Of course, the Democrats (or Libertarians, for that matter) can say the same things about Republicans – if the economy is so important, why the big focus on abortion, gay marriage, pornography, and social conservatism?

@El Cholo: Nonsense. If you seek obsessive behavior, look no further than the social conservatives braying away about ‘baby murderers’ on any post-Akin thread. So-con bigots are repulsive to a majority of Americans, including many R’s, which is why you have to keep them muzzled when possible.

Oh, and if you search for the majority sentiment on social issues, the accurate comparison is with conservatives who are actually ‘socially moderate’ and not allegedly ‘socially liberal’ — big difference.

Meantime, Ryan’s fine speech gave Romney a badly needed helping hand. It’s hard to see how Biden can avoid the shredder in the debate.

The difficulty, which you will deny forever, is that few want or trust your definition of ‘moral behavior’, let alone agree with it — and they certainly won’t agree to your claimed right to shove your ‘morality’ down their throats, however much you huff and puff.

Related but different: like many Independents, I know and respect a few centrist Democrats, and rather more Republicans, but the list is short. Those most worthy of respect, in my experience, long since severed formal ties with either party.

Strange you should say that since my 12 year old niece was recently instructed on how to use an “Oral Dam” in order to give a “Rim Job”, and how to use “Finger Condoms” if should like to “experiment” with another girl or have her “boyfriend” digitally penetrate her without “going all the way to sex”, all in a public school, by a visiting Government Funded HIV Positive Promoter of HIS sexual preferences….

After that, she was forced to hold a realistic looking, fully erect plastic-penis in her hand, and apply a condom to it whether she wanted to or not, under the threat of “failing Heath Class” for the year if she did not…

So, again, who is forcing their views?

Why to Liberals OBSESS over making it mandatory in schools, to forcibly place pre-pubesent children into what can only be described as sexually charged situations. Its happening more and more, with younger and younger children every year.

Its very disturbing, and I think, rather revealing of their true motives.

“if the economy is so important, why the big focus on abortion, gay marriage, pornography, and social conservatism?”

Ummmm….

Because the leftest promotion of THAT kind of moral outlook breeds the conditions for selfishness, lies, the cheapening/disregard for of human life and basic rules of social decency, which LEADS to such economic destruction?

Or, if you’re totally cool with killing babies, I’m so sure I can trust you with my money?

I like congressman Ryan, but I would disagree with this statement. Right now we have 43 million Americans on food stamps, and around 140 million US residents dependent on federal taxpayers for some sort of income payments. I find it hard to believe any of these people are “struggling to find work”.

Frankly, we need to provide these “struggling millions” with the opportunity to work for their benefits. It would be amazing to see just how many of these millions would immediately manage to find work.

“…….On the debt crisis, the focus of his “Path to Prosperity” budget plan, he said, “I’m going to level with you: We don’t have that much time. But if we are serious, and smart, and we lead, we can do this.”……..”

He should’ve lead with this with the following for emphasis – ‘…and if we don’t get a handle on borrowing into debt, nothing else we do will amount to much’………

I was not a fan of John Kennedy, but I did admire his presentation even though it was empty rhetoric. If Paul Ryan was a Democrat, the MSM would marvel about the similarity of appearance, mannerisms and delivery.
It is obvious to the unjaundiced eye that the Republicans are getting younger and more dynamic.

The the TV buy practically writes itself. The twenty something moved back in his old room in his parents; with the old Obama posters and thread bare Star War sheets. Suit and tie hung up in the old closet. Listening to Ryan’s lines about the kid back home and saying, “How did it come to this?”

Have somebody “now” write the copy and choose the music speak to the young ones.

It is fascinating to see the Republican campaign emerging through the speeches of Ann Romney, Chris Christie, Mia Love and Paul Ryan. It is different from the Democrats’ worn slogans, vicious insults, malicious lies and fantasy narratives.

The Republicans have avoided a campaign that consists of two sides endlessly exchanging personal attacks and hurling trumped up accusations. They are manoeuvreing into position where Republicans are the adults offering serious proposals for America to find itself again. The Democrats having caused America to lose itself are now just a mean bunch of losers whose intention is only to bring the country down to mirror their own unhappy, nasty, diminished and useless collective persona.

Truly epic. A tad wobbly with his first lines, but he quickly found his bearings and then it was down to business. One of the most substantive I’ve ever heard.

One of the great moments for me was when he was outlining the world Obama is advancing, where the government is there to help us along at every stage of our life – no doubt an allusion to the Obama campaign’s “Julia” theme. The camera was panning the audience as he said “… where everything is free …” Then he dropped the bomb. “… except us.” A woman’s jaw dropped, stunned, as Ryan made the connection. Government “goodies” come at the price of our freedom. She went wild. I would have phrased it differently (“but we are not”), but those listening got the point.

I very much like the tag line “Let’s Get This Done” — I foresee t-shirts and bumper stickers. But my favorite line in the speech was his characterization of Obama’s performance as “trying to sail a ship on yesterday’s wind.” So poetic, so devastating. I didn’t get to see the speech last night. (When you have a job in this economy you work the hours it takes to keep it.) But I got to listen to it on C-Span radio very early this morning on the drive in. I’m not usually emotional. I haven’t teared up at a political speech since Reagan ordered Gorby to tear down that wall. Yet I was crying in relief and gratitude.

I stayed with C-Span long enough to hear to beginning of Washington Journal. The first caller — on the “independent” phone line, natch — tore into the Republican convention goers as “a cross between Taliban Lite and Joseph Goebbels.” Sigh. I guess listening to such is the price we’ll have to pay for wrestling this car wreck back onto the highway.

How about !. . “Happy Birthday” means much more . Than have a happy day. . Within these words lie lots of things . I never get to say. . It means I love you first of all, . Then thanks for all you do. . It means you mean a lot to me, . And that I’m proud of you. . So sweet ——– have a lovely day.. . Place childs name on the last line.